Giving a team that has never lost at home and had just three defeats all season a man-up situation is no way to win a regular season match, let alone a playoff game.

But that's what the Western Mass. Pioneers did, losing its coach and starting left side defender to ejections and falling 4-2 to the Cleveland City Islanders in the first round of the United Soccer Leagues Second Division playoffs Wednesday night at Krenzler Stadium in Cleveland.

The sixth-seeded Pioneers closed the season at 5-10-6. No. 3 Cleveland advances to the semifinals and will play at Richmond Saturday.

The match was reminiscent of the 3-1 loss the Pioneers suffered at Cleveland Independence Day. In that one, coach Leszek Wrona and players Neil Krause and Federico Molinari were ejected. This time Wrona was tossed in the first half and Molinari picked up his second yellow in the 68th minute with the score tied 2-2.

"We were toe to toe with them for most of the game, even when we were down a guy," said Pioneers general manager Greg Kolodziey, who took over for Wrona on the sidelines. "We wore down at the end trying to chase a goal and they were countering like crazy."

Musa Otieno Ongad scored the go-ahead goal off a free kick from Jason Hotchkin in the 69th minute following Molinari's exit from the field. The City Islanders (11-3-7), who are 8-0-3 at home this season and 15-0-6 at home since joining the USL2 in 2007, added an 89th minute goal from Sallieu Bundu with an assist from Adam Rudd.

"It's never easy to finish the game with less players than we start with," Pioneers forward Jeff Deren said. "I thought we had the better of the play until about eight minutes left in the game, then they took it to us."

Cleveland scored the first goal in the 15th minute, Mark Shulte scoring on a header off a set piece. The Pioneers answered a minute later, Deren scoring out of a scramble following a corner kick.

Bundu scored his first of the match in the 23rd minute to give the City Islanders the lead going into the half, but Krause knotted the game from Omar McFarlane in the 63rd minute.